2019.10.21 10:31
2019.10.21 11:07
2019.10.21 23:31
Statins sure are wonder drugs indeed! I am one of beneficieries as well.
We should take advantages of modern medical advancement as much as we can.
Thanks for the information! Dr. Lee! KJ
2019.10.22 01:36
Thank you, Dr. Hwang, for your comment.
The above is a fascinating story by the Japanese scientist
how the statin drug was discovered by his life long endeavor.
The first statin, Lovastatin(Mevacor), was introduced commercially
in September of 1987. I started my Cardiology practice in July of 1971.
Throughout 1970's and 80's until Mevacor became available I witnessed
so many desperate patients with high cholesterol and CVD that
in looking back it was a long unending nightmare of horror story.
There were so many young people who suffered heart attacks in their prime age.
There were so many patients with stroke and hemiplegia.
There were so many patients with legs amputated because of gangrene.
Cardiologists were equally desperate in coming up with numerous ideas
regarding how to lower cholesterol. American Heart Association came up with
many different levels of low cholesterol diet.
There was Pritkin diet which was vegetarian diet.
One of my desperate patients who suffered MI in his 40's and was very rich
asked me to find a Korean cook who would cook traditional Korean foods.
I still vividly remember when Mevacor became available and the excitement
in the Cardiology community. It was a wonder drug that brought in revolution
in cardiovascular clinical practice.
We no longer see many young patients with MIs and strokes and leg amputations
in the hospital. The average onset of heart attacks and strokes has been pushed to old age
by decades thanks to effective treatment of hyperlipidemia and others.
Now we see the patients with CVD enjoy normal meals and long life.
What a difference Statins had made in the wellbeing of mankind!
2019.10.22 10:07
Please don't get too excited.
Very soon, they will start selling Viagra to children and teenagers too.
They will somehow find some dubious reasons to justify their selling ED drug to younger people.
There is a farmer's tale saying that "statins make people dumb." I think this is true.
The pharmaceutical companies are now trying to make money by selling cholesterol drugs even to children.
Then, all children will become idiots before their brains fully mature.
By the time they get to be late teens, all of them will become Alzheimer-like zombies.
It is not well published but the cholesterol-lowering drugs affect the brain in a negative way.
I think the drug makers have been keeping this as a tight secret.
Now, we are going to get a bunch of moronic brains with an excellent circulation system.
They will live forever !! God bless humanity!
2019.10.22 10:45
While statin users have reported memory loss to the FDA, studies haven’t found evidence to support these claims. Research has actually suggested the opposite — that statins may help prevent Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
In a 2013 review, researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine looked at 41 different studies on statins to see if there was a link between taking the medication and memory loss. Combined, the studies followed 23,000 men and women with no history of memory problems for up to 25 years.
The researchers found no evidence that using statins caused memory loss or dementia. In fact, there was some evidence that long-term statin use may protect against dementia.
Scientists believe this is because certain types of dementia are caused by small blockages in blood vessels that carry blood to the brain. Statins may help to reduce these blockages.
There remains some uncertainty about whether statins affect memory.
A 2015 study found that a small group of patients taking statins experienced amnesia. However, that finding may have been insignificant. The percentage of people taking statins who reported memory issues wasn’t much different from those taking other cholesterol-lowering medications. (from the Internet)
WM, you remind me of one old female Jewish patient of mine who harassed me for some three years.
She accused me I caused dementia by prescribing Lipitor. She went to several lawyers to sue me
but couldn't find any lawyer to sue me. Then she came to the waiting room of my office and told all my patients
that I caused dementia to her brain by giving her Lipitor. That didn't satisfy her so then she followed me in my hospital
round and was telling my hospitalized patients what I did to her. That didn't satisfy her so then she wrote letters to
the president of the county medical society and the president of Michigan State medical society for the same and
asked them to investigate me, which they certainly did and let me know not to be concerned.
Let me tell you, WM, that as alluded in the above article, small vessel disease of the brain is very common
among the elderly and a great concern for clinicians for a possible cause of vascular dementia.
Vascular dementia is real and treatable and preventable to a great degree.
Untreated hypercholesterolemia is the predictable risk of vascular dementia.
Two MD patients of mine who elected not to treat their severe hypercholesterolemia for many years
have developed dementia as I warned them and are in the advanced stage now.
Statins will help prevent vascular dementia by preventing stroke and small vessel disease of the brain, WM.
2019.10.23 08:46
I would like to mention one more patient whose age was same as me
and suffered acute MI in his 30's in 1970's.
I determined he had familial hyperlipidemia with cholesterol 500 and
triglyceride 1500. Coronary arteries showed diffuse disease.
The prognosis at the time was terrible with the best treatment and drugs
available. He was a school teacher who told me, "Doc, I will do anything
you ask me to do. Just find a way to save me."
I did my search for anything available to control his severe hyperlipidemia
in that field and found Dr. Buckwalter at University of Minnesota who
received NIH grant to perform partial intestinal bypass bypassing terminal
ileum where cholesterol is absorbed. To make a long story short he underwent
the surgery. His lipids were brought down. Repeat coronary angio 7 years later
confirmed clearing of diffuse 3 vessel disease. He retired at age 65 and the
the intestinal bypass was reversed and was put on Statins and others.
As far as I know, he is still around and enjoying his retirement as I am doing.
2019.10.23 12:16
Doc, you are really a nice person to trust all those studies including the 2013 review at Johns Hopkins.
I would not believe it. The school must have taken a lot of money from the big pharma.
No thank you. Those sporadic single anecdotes don't prove anything.
It used to be a very fashionable thing to quote "this or that" studies in the medical field.
Most of them turned out to be false later.
We should get out of the bad habit.
Just lately, a big pharma offered something like 270 million (!!!) to settle an opioid lawsuit.
They did not want to go to the court trial and just gave away 270 million as if it is nothing.
Then the same pharma offered to settle at 10-12 "BILLION!!" for the same.
Can you imagine how much money they had made to do that?
Probably most of the medical research or medical reviews are financed by the big pharma.
The hungry researchers will produce any results for them in order to get the research grant.
I put this article on this page to make a couple of points.
An estimated 70%-95% of FH results from a heterozygous pathogenic variant in one of three genes (APOB, LDLR, PCSK9).
FH is the most common inherited cardiovascular disease, with a prevalence of 1:200-250.
FH likely accounts for 2%-3% of myocardial infarctions in individuals younger than age 60 years.
So point number one:
It is not uncommon to find people around us who have FH and have survived to an old age thanks to statins and others.
So if you happened to be one of those survivors and have a bunch of grand kids, it would be wise thing to do
to screen them to find out which ones are unlucky ones who inherited your gene and
may consider initiating statin therapy as this article suggests.
It appears doing that may be more important than giving them money after you are gone.
Point number two:
This article once again corroborates how powerful and how good drugs statins are.
A long, long time ago Cardiology community convinced of this truth and believes statins indeed
succeeded in contributing significantly to the longer life spans of the human race.
Yet still so many people are oblivious to this truth and missing out the opportunity to prolong
their life. So many CAD patients with or without stents and cabgs live to be 80s, 90s and 100 plus
thanks to Statins.
I had one lady whom I sent to Cleveland Clinic for urgent CABG in 1975 and lived to be 102.
She did not die of heart disease.
Still dying of CVD before age 100 account for some 50% and is preventable with statins and others.
If you die of CVD even in 90's, it is your fault thru the neglect and ignorance on the part of you
and your treating physician, I believe.